Social Norms.

I find that I'm a pretty observant person. I notice little details about the environment and things people say. In group settings I find myself sitting back and watching the way people act, or the things they say. There are 2 things I've noticed about people lately. (There was three but I've been really busy and delayed this post so I completely forgot the 3rd. If I ever remember I will blog about it)

Thing 1. People are lazy. I'm sure everyone already knows this but there is one example that really makes me laugh. Traffic goes in two directions when walking into a building through a door. Common knowledge. It's also common knowledge that there is a door designated for those leaving the building and a door designated for those entering it. Now this is what humors me. People are coming and leaving through one door, causing a traffic jam of people because everyone is too lazy to open up the other door and start that lane of traffic. I experimented with this the other day as we were going onto devotional. There are 100's of students milling about trying to get into the building and yet we weren't using all the doors. We were going single filling through 2 doors when there were 6 that could be used. I exerted some strength and pulled open one of the doors, after I did that it was amazing, everyone behind me started using it. But guaranteed if I hadn't opened the door, people would've still gone single fill through.

Thing 2. Bathrooms and unflushed toilets. I don't know if any of you men out there have this problem in the washroom. What happens is there will be a certain number of stalls, lets say 3, and there are 5 people who are in need of the washroom. The 2 stalls fill up and a girl in front of you goes to use the other one but walks back out and stand in line. Why does she do this? Because the toilet hasn't be flushed. Heaven forbid you flush someone else's toilet. Instead you are going to make everyone else wait in line because you can't flush, wait 10 seconds for it to all go down and then go to the bathroom. Maybe you are thinking there are more germs when you freshly flush a toilet. That might be so, but any other time you would've walked into the stall right after SOMEONE ELSE flushed. Am I right or am I right.

Anyway. That's all I've got.

Dance like there's no tomorrow.

The last few days my sister and I have been having mad dance parties in the bathroom while we get ready. The other day we danced for about 30-45 min while we got ready for a date. We tried to take some pictures of us dancing, but they aren't the most flattering. And we took a video. I would thrill you all with it, but my blog doesn't like to upload videos. To bad for you. :)

The importance of a smile :)

Smile: It may change someone else’s Life—Dove Chocolate Promises

One of my favorite things will be when I'm walking to school and as I'm approaching someone they make eye contact and smile at me. Automatically my day is better. I feel happier and I feel like smiling at every person that walks by me. I don't even know why. Is a smile contagious just like laughter? A part of methinks so. If someone smiles at you, you automatically smile back and just smiling makes a person feel better. In my effective living class we watched a movie on "Happiness" It talked about what happiness is and what happiness isn't. Back in theolden days happiness was just a meal on the table, a child reaching adult hood, and a pump that brought water into the house. What is happiness today? How many of us think happiness is derived from a frivolous lifestyle, money, big homes and fancy cars? That's how hollywood portrays happiness, but I always wonder if they are really happy. I think once you have such a lifestyle you become complacent and you aren't happy anymore.Then your neighbor get something better then you so you think "if I get myself one of those then I'll be happy" but they find themselves in the same spot as before. They aren't happy cause they can't find happiness in the little things, the things that really matter. There are some exceptions to the rules. I've seen it before, but I don't think it's that common.

So what is happiness? I think happiness is having a friend with a shoulder to cry on whenever you need. It's walking outside and hearing the birds chirping and feeling the suns warm rays on your skin. Happiness is finding joy in the simple things. People that don't have a lot of wealth but have enough to supply for their familyare generally more happy then those that are very wealthy and those that are dirt poor. (I'm not completely bashing money)

There is so much power in a smile. If we are having a bad day we can turn it upside down with a simple move. And that's choosing to smile. Our happiness depends on how we handle situations We can laugh at the bad things that happen in our day and just appreciate that it could've been much worse. Also I don't know about anyone else but how much more fun do you have being around happy people opposed to grumpy bumps on a log? Let me tell you I've hung out with these 5 girls twice and they are the funniest happiest girls I've met on campus. They laugh so easily and make everything a joke. I haven't laughed so hard and long as I have on these 2 occasions. You can't help but love these girls. How can you not love people that are happy?!

If you have the time you should watch this video. It's kind of long as in about 15 mins worth of your time, But it's humorous and it shows you what just a few kind words can do to someone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao

That's really all my thoughts on happiness. It's homemade, it changes people's lives, it can change yours. So SMILE and choose to be happy :)

Miracles do happen.

The title may be a little bit deceiving and giving you a false idea about what an amazing blog post this will be. I mean, it might be a little cool, and it could be a miracle. I will never now, I can only be left to speculate about the what ifs.

The other day I was walking home from school in shoes that have ZERO grip. When I mean zero grip I mean I slip on pavement, tile, hardwood, basically any smooth surface. So I'm crossing the street at one of the busiest intersections of campus (I'm sure you can already guess where this is going) Well one foot slips out from underneath me and I land on one knee to try and catch myself, but my back pack throws me off balance and I tip over onto my side... in the middle of the road. So I lay there for a second, try to pick my pride up off the floor as well as my body and continue walking.As I'm walking I'm approaching adrive way for the parking lot of an apartment complex. In front of the driveway there was a big snow bank, and as I'm just getting ready to walk onto the driveway this car comes whipping out of there. After she passes I was thinking about what if I'd been 2-3 feet ahead and had gotten hit by her. She couldn't see me because of the snow pile so by the time she saw me she probably wouldn't have been able to stop. Then it dawned on me. If I had not crashed back at the intersection it is very likely that car and my body could've met up at the same time. All the sudden I didn't mind so much that I had scraped up my foot and lost my pride. I was still alive. Miracle? Maybe.

This is my scrapped up foot. I think it hurt a lot worse then it actually looks.

Point made.

So a few blog posts ago I talked about girls and their issues with bodies. One point I made was that boys are a contributing factor whether they realize or intend to be. Here is a prime example.

We were at FHE and our FHE brothers had made a chip dip. It was a hamburger, cream cheese and salsa mixture and then they also had shrimp and dip. Madison, isn't the biggest fan of hamburger and hates shrimp, samantha is a vegetarian, and the rest of our room mates didn't come. So I had been the only one eating. One of our FHE brothers observes this and points it out. Another FHE brother, who thinks he is God's gift to woman and the funniest guy ever, says (pointing to Madison) that's because she's anorexic, and she's bulimic (pointing at me). Madison just kind of gasps and sits there, I try to make light of the situation and joke back by being like "Excuse me I need to use your bathroom" And the Samantha- the coolest girl in the whole world- Just looks right at him and in a condoning tone says " That was very inappropriate" James was a little taken a back that someone would actual talk back to him that way, and stuttered out that he was only joking. It was awkward for a few more seconds.

So like I said, boys have no idea what trouble they cause for us girls with our bodies and how we feel about ourselves. You have no idea what is going on in our lives. Any one of us could have a close relative, friend or ourself, that struggles with these issues. It's so inconsiderate, and it's not even slightly funny. I wish I could've been more like samantha and let James know how wrong that was for him to say. Boys can't be blamed entirely, because they generally don't have any idea, because we never tell them how it effects us. Anyway, I don't have much more to say about the topic. Other then boys need to get a clue and be more sensitive.

The end.